Leave No Man Behind
by Jaya Mitai
Summary: Dr. McKay is fatally wounded and SGA-1 is cut off from help. Will Sheppard lose the rest of the team trying to save a man who can't be saved? (Surprisingly fluffy.) Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Leave No Man Behind**

Jaya Mitai

 **Disclaimer** – Don't own Stargate Atlantis. Or SG-1. Or Universe. Really, I don't own much of anything. Making no money. Please don't sue.

Set somewhere in Seasons 3-4. Spoilers for The Defiant One (season 1) and Rising, The Intruder, and Phantoms, which are Seasons 2-3. This is a present for a friend I hadn't seen in quite some time. Here you go, beautiful!

\- x -

Sheppard locked eyes with McKay. _Easy. Just play it cool. We'll get you out of this._

"Drop it. You got nowhere to go."

Dr. Rodney McKay didn't even glance towards Ronon, his expression a confliction of terror, annoyance, and embarrassment. If his eyes said anything, it was along the lines of _Dammit, not again with the lunatics, yes I know I should have practiced more at the range, please don't let him break the thing!_

The thing was in no danger of being broken, there in the sand where Rodney had dropped it, and Teyla eased around it, P90 steady. "Release him unharmed and you may leave. We will not stop you."

They had them – the soldier and McKay – pinned in a neat triangle, with no way of maneuvering a clumsy and hesitant hostage through the rough-hewn stone archway without leaving an opening. There was a bulge in the right hip pouch of the soldier's uniform belt – probably a grenade – but otherwise, he was armed only with the pistol that was pressed to the back of McKay's head, just behind his left ear.

One lone Genii. And unless he was mistaken . . . "That magazine only holds twelve, maybe fifteen rounds." Sheppard curled his finger into the trigger cage of his own weapon. "How many shots do you think you have left?"

The soldier didn't sneer, as he'd hoped. Nor did he seem to be oblivious to his position. He made no attempt to wrestle McKay towards the exit, he simply made himself as small a target as possible against the narrow decorative niche.

"You should know, Sheppard of Atlantis," the soldier said quietly. "I'm sure you've been counting. And I know you've killed enough to know that it only takes one." McKay grimaced and twitched his head to the right, obviously responding to pressure.

"And then what?" Teyla's lips were pressed in a thin line. She couldn't get a better angle, despite her comparative lack of height. McKay was a little wider than some, and it was difficult to tell in the standard issue jacket just where the material ended and Rodney began. "If you kill him, do you believe we will let you walk away?"

No smile. This was not an officer. He knew who they were, sure, but this wasn't revenge for what had happened to Kolya's team either. And it was very unlikely there was but a single Genii in the ruins, certainly not after the racket they'd made.

He knew he was dead, and he was hedging for time.

"I won't kill him," the Genii admitted, his voice steady. "He's your scientist, isn't he. Not a soldier."

Ronon caught his eye from across the room, and John gave the Genii a dry smile. Definitely stalling. "Is this a new policy? No killing civilians?"

"Not when I can get all four of you with the same bullet."

John never took his eyes off McKay. "Ronon."

The big Satedan flicked the settings on his pistol, from stun to something a little more serious, and without waiting for a reply from the Genii, sent a crimson bolt of energy singing past McKay's right ear to impact the carved shell behind them.

The decoration shattered, no more than thin limestone mounted on something much more solid, and both the Genii and McKay flinched from the shrapnel. McKay dropped, exactly like he'd been taught, and John calmly put two slugs into the left shoulder – the gun arm - of the soldier holding him.

Only the soldier had dropped with McKay, anticipating the move, and they ended up sprawled together against the blood-stained wall, with Rodney awkwardly struggling to lean forward enough to roll away, and the Genii's right hand still tangled in the back of his jacket. Ronon followed up with a stun blast that echoed like a gunshot in the small temple chamber.

Rodney slumped back against the unconscious Genii, eyes wide, and Sheppard swore, halving the distance between them before Teyla beat him there. The trinket, whatever Ancient thing Rodney just couldn't make himself leave behind, was kicked against the arched doorframe as she slid to her knees beside him, P90 tucked now beneath her arm.

"Rodney –"

His head settled gently towards her, his eyes still wide and shocked, and John could see the blood on the side of his neck. He yanked the pistol away from the unconscious Genii, his shots had been true and the soldier's rotator cuff was destroyed but this wasn't spatter on McKay, this was a real wound –

"Rodney, don't move," he heard himself growl, and Teyla took McKay's face in her hands as Sheppard leaned into the shadows, trying to see.

The pistol muzzle had dropped, the bullet had gone through the back of his neck laterally, just where the cervical vertebrae met the thoracic. He was bleeding heavily, and unless he was very, very lucky, his spine had been severed.

Sheppard ripped through the velcro on his tac vest, yanking a field dressing free of its wrapper. "Stay with me, Rodney, we got you. Just hold still." Still was not a problem. McKay had not moved a muscle, not so much as twitched a finger, and the only sound was his breathing, shuddering but oddly regular. No hyperventilation. "Talk to me, buddy. You with us?"

The field dressings were coated with a powdered clotting agent, which Sheppard knew first hand burned like all hellfire, and as he hastily wrapped the tape around McKay's throat and under his arm he saw that Rodney had screwed his eyes shut. His mouth was slightly open, but he didn't cry out, just took his slow, shivering breaths.

Involuntary breathing only. His spine had definitely been hit.

"We got company," came Ronon's tight voice. He'd seen the injury as well, and now stood to the side of the archway, looking down the steep ramp they had climbed to enter the temple. "I count almost a dozen. They haven't figured out where we are yet."

"We need something to immobilize his neck," John didn't bother to be quiet, knowing that if Teyla could hear him, McKay could too. It would scare him, but they didn't have the time. "There's a neck brace in the jumper-"

"No way across the plaza without getting spotted," Ronon growled, ducking back inside the doorframe. "We need another exit."

John gave a sharp nod, still holding pressure on the wound, and Ronon headed off into the large hall without a second's hesitation. Sheppard found himself unsurprised that the big Satedan hadn't said anything to McKay.

"Rodney, can you hear me?" Teyla's voice was soothing. Calm. In just that moment, she was Teyla Emmagen, Daughter of Tegan, leader of the Athosians, and she was not going to let anything else happen to him. "We are here."

It was hard to tell if she was having any effect. Rodney's eyes were still squeezed shut, tears making tracks through the dust on his face, and Teyla hastily wiped one away, murmuring too softly for John to make out. She was using the stunned Genii's arm as a brace for Rodney's head, and when she was certain it would not move, she scrambled to her feet, eyes darting to every corner. "I see nothing we can use as a brace-"

"Give me your jacket." Sheppard would kill for a SAM splint but that was also back on the jumper. Cloth wasn't going to make a sufficient brace but there was nothing else to use. "Just hang in there, Rodney . . ."

While Teyla ditched her tac vest and jacket, he eased his hand off the bandage and struggled with Rodney's belt, careful not to shift his torso any more than he had to. Rodney was slumped against the Genii like a little kid sprawled on his dad watching the game, but his head had rolled to the right, and there was no way to brace it without getting McKay into a more neutral position.

Without risking more damage.

Teyla dropped her jacket onto McKay's chest, shrugging back into her vest, and John folded it repeatedly from collar to hem into a tight rectangle. "We need to straighten his head. Gently." McKay was still breathing, he was still conscious, which was no small miracle but there was no way he hadn't suffered serious spinal damage, and the last thing they needed was a shard of his shattered cervical vertebrae finishing the job.

Even if they got his neck braced, they could never carry him the half mile to the jumper without a stretcher. And they certainly couldn't do it under fire.

"Get under his shoulders if you can. I only need a couple inches."

Teyla nodded, steading herself on Rodney's right side, easing his back up just slightly. Her slender arms trembled slightly under the weight of supporting his neck and head, keeping everything aligned, and Sheppard worked as fast as he dared, laying the makeshift splint gently against the dressing, already soaked through. He curved the ends up and around McKay's neck, looping the belt around as well. John tightened it just enough to hold the jacket firmly in place, and as Teyla ever so gently laid him back down, Rodney's hitched breaths continued.

"You're doing great, McKay, you're doing really good."

Rodney's eyes slitted open, the thinnest flicker of blue, and he said nothing.

"I am going to keep watch. I will be right here with you." She laid her hand on his cheek, and the blue shifted sluggishly in her direction. He could see them, then, maybe hear them even if he couldn't speak.

"Rodney, buddy, can you hear me?"

His pupils were unnaturally dilated in the dim of the room, huge and watery, and John dredged up the most sincere smile he could manage as Teyla slipped back towards the archway.

"One blink yes, two blinks no. Can you hear me?"

There was a long, intentional blink. _Yes._ John released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Good, that's good. We're halfway there. Does it hurt anywhere?"

Rodney closed his eyes emphatically, it was seconds before he opened them again.

"Anywhere besides your neck?"

His eyelids trembled but didn't close, and another fat tear rolled down his jaw.

"Three blinks, you want me to rephrase the question."

Rodney blinked twice. _No._

"Okay, that's okay. You just keep breathing, and try to stay awake. Ronon's on his way back to the jumper. We'll call in reinforcements and have you out of here in no time."

 _Yes._

It occurred to him, belatedly, that leaving Rodney lying on a Genii who was only stunned was sooner or later going to become a problem. If his own wounds didn't keep him out. He wanted to wait before moving Rodney again, wait until he passed out, either from fear or shock, but the scientist was still remarkably conscious, searching the ceiling with his jaw slightly slack.

He couldn't even moan. That meant no control of his diaphragm, his lungs, no voluntary control below the injury site. Very little above it, but that was probably just swelling and shock.

Fragments of his field first aid courses vied for John's attention. Depressed breathing, inability to cough, eventually requiring ventilation. Difficulty keeping his tongue out of his airway, requiring safety pinning his tongue to his lower lip. Fluid buildup against his spine, worsening the symptoms or causing seizures that would surely exacerbate his injuries.

"I'm gonna check things out. I'll be right here in the room, okay?"

Rodney closed his eyes and didn't open them again.

John patted him awkwardly on the head, straightening and giving the Genii soldier another look before joining Teyla by the temple archway. They were at the top of the steep ceremonial ramp, and the high ground should have afforded them some advantage but for the enormous plaza that lay below them, giving potential Genii snipers their pick of rooftops. They could be picked off themselves, but it made crossing the threshold very dangerous, and getting down the ramp unseen utterly impossible. The stone that made up the temple was a light golden color, and as he recalled the planet had at least three orbiting bodies, meaning a high likelihood of some amount of moonlight.

They weren't getting down that ramp anytime soon, darkness or no.

On the bright side, it looked like Ronon was right; the Genii could be seen scuttling from building to building, largely ignoring the temple for now. Given the extreme . . . squareness . . . of the square, and the uniform facades of the buildings that formed it, the echo of the gunfight had probably bounced around the plaza to the point of completely obliterating any directional indication. It had probably sounded like a battalion had confronted half a Wraith hive down there and the Genii couldn't find a single shell casing to corroborate it.

"He intended to cripple Rodney." Teyla's voice was fire. "He knew we could not move him with such an injury."

 _Not when I can get all four of you with the same bullet._

But he hadn't. Ronon was out scouting; even if he couldn't get them out of the temple, even if he couldn't get to the jumper, he'd find a more secure place to hole up. It was them against a dozen Genii, and all he had to do was channel a little Indiana Jones and rig a few booby-traps. They weren't due to check in for another five hours, but Lorne wouldn't let it go all night. He'd dial in. They were within a couple miles of the 'gate, their radios would work fine.

Just five hours. McKay had to hold on for five hours.

\- x -

"I'm done."

Sheppard mashed the C4 into the crack along the keystone, careful not to spread it too thin. Too thin, and all you got was a pop. He could almost hear Cadman's polite criticism over his shoulder.

God, they could use her right now. Her and Major Lorne and the backup team that was still two hours from realizing SGA-1 was pinned down.

"You hear me?"

"Yeah. Hang on." The C4 was in shadow, which was exactly what he wanted, and Sheppard pressed the mini detonator home, glad of his short-cut nails.

"Looks good."

"Well, hopefully it doesn't look like anything." He hopped down out of the limestone niche, pleased to see that the explosive was nearly invisible from the ground, and accepted the clacker Ronon held out to him. "How's our friend?"

"Alive." The Satedan's deep rumble said more than words how he felt about it. "Left him tied up at the other end of the main hall. There's a bunch of storage rooms back there, some Ancient crystals too."

That ought to keep them distracted.

"We should have killed him. If they know it's us, they'll look harder."

It was hard to disagree with his logic. Sheppard loped back towards the antechamber, Ronon keeping pace. "We leave him alive, they spend two guys helping him back to the 'gate."

Taking soldiers out of play to help the wounded. Same as they did to us.

They slowed as they reached the corner, but there was no sound, no whisper of boots. The Genii hadn't made it up to the temple yet. "You sure there's no way out back there?"

The Runner grunted. "None that I could find, but there's gotta be. No one sets up a place like this without another way out." Without another way to flee the Wraith, he didn't say.

This was about the time McKay would typically use the Ancient scanner to find the hollows behind the wall, giving them his superior, lop-sided smirk as an innocent block of stone hissed smoothly back to reveal a secret passage. Given the time, John could probably do that himself, but he knew they didn't have it. It was either bank on another way out – a way they could safely transport McKay through – or set up booby-traps and wait for reinforcements.

Ronon was right. There must be another way out of the damn temple. It seemed insanely poor planning to make the only Wraith-proof room inescapable once you were inside it.

But inside it they went, a small, nondescript antechamber dominated by an enormous rectangular . . . altar, John finally settled on. It looked a little like the long table in the formal hall in the house in DC where he'd grown up, the one that had been referred to as a 'cadaver table.' But that label hit a little closer to home than 'altar,' so altar it was.

Teyla's watchful eyes peered out from around one of the thick stone legs of the altar, and Sheppard nodded to her. "All set," he said, quietly. "Explosives on all the entrances and a few of the hallway arches. They'll be loud and look good, but they won't bring the place down on our heads."

Probably.

His teammate nodded, her attention now at her feet, and Sheppard came around the giant altar-table. McKay was laid out on his back behind the stone pillar, eyes closed, and his breathing had finally steadied out, no longer hitching in his chest. "How is he?"

She slid down the wall across from Rodney, her P90 cradled in her arms. "I believe he is unconscious," she murmured, relief evident in her tone. "The morphine you gave him hasn't affected his breathing. It is much the same rhythm as before."

Not like it had been when they had carried him in. It had taken all three of them, two of them to immobilize his back and neck, and as careful as they'd been, there had been no way to ignore that it had been agony for McKay. His shuddering breaths, the only indication Rodney could give them of how he was feeling, had been louder than screams.

And against his better judgement, knowing it would make breathing even harder, Sheppard had given Rodney a dose of morphine. The risk seemed worth it; right now it was the periodic breath of sleep, McKay's body regulating itself with little or no input from his brain.

God dammit.

"You ready, big guy?"

Ronon grunted, coming around the other side of the enormous, solid slab of golden stone. It had to weigh at least five hundred pounds, but there were funny little convenient crevices here and there, and Sheppard had a feeling they'd be able to roll it end on end without much trouble. He also had a feeling, eyeballing the rectangular entranceway, that the table top was going to be a perfect fit.

"What are you doing?"

Teyla was back on her feet as Ronon planted himself, getting a firm grip. "We'll use this to block the door." It was the same stone, the same color, even the same texture, unusually unfinished for something that was supposed to be a table.

She just nodded, stepping over Rodney to place herself in the middle, and Ronon gritted his teeth and started to lift.

When they'd laid Rodney down behind it, Sheppard had seen there was a channel carved in the underside, that locked it into place on the two wide stone pillars that served as legs. That kept it stable on only two legs, and should also make it relatively easy to upend.

Relatively. The cords stood out starkly on Ronon's neck, his breath hissing between his teeth, but the stone came up inch by inch, and Teyla and John controlled the slide along that groove, until Ronon had managed to tilt it far enough that it slid all the way, slipping to the ground at John's feet with a deep, resonating thud.

At _least_ five hundred pounds. Good thing he'd moved his toes.

Teyla helped Ronon walk it upright, and John held the other side, hoping beyond hope they didn't tip it over onto him. While the four corners were somewhat rounded, the edges were more defined, and it steadied itself on the dusty floor with only the barest of wobbles.

"Okay." Now the hard part. "We've only got enough room to roll it once. When we get near the doorframe we'll pivot on this corner," and he indicated it by kicking it, "and we'll put it into place."

And once they did that, they were essentially sealed in. No going back on Plan C.

No one liked Plan C. Plan C was 'sit and wait for rescue.'

There was a slight hesitation from behind the stone. "You're sure about this?"

And that was the ten million dollar question. If they were found, they were toast. They were in a relatively square room, with only two short stone pillars for cover, and one way in or out. Nowhere to fall back. He glanced up at the high ceiling, lit by cleverly reflected light from what John could only assume were some kind of low-tech sun tunnel skylights, taking advantage of the quartz-like crystals in the golden stone to create a sort of diffuse, directionless glow.

Good for light and air, not so good for escape. Once they did this, it was sit and wait time. "If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

The temple was designed for worship, not for war games. There was a main hallway, wide enough to admit the masses, a few antechambers like this one, the front entrance room, the main audience chamber, and the storage rooms. They could start the fight in the first chamber and fall back to the antechambers off the main hall, but sooner or later they'd be backed into a corner. That was the problem with a temple that only had one entrance.

And they didn't have the ordinance to hold that first room. They still had some C4, and the grenade that Genii had had on him, but otherwise they were down to three P90s, six extra mags, three nine mils with an extra mag apiece, Ronon's blaster, and knives. They'd scouted the damn site from the air and read no life signs. They'd come into this thinking demo, not defense.

"I say we fight. A dozen of them, three of us."

"For all we know, as soon as they heard the weapons fire one of them double-timed it back to the 'gate for reinforcements." It would be very expensive for the Genii to take the ramp, but if they succeeded, the fight would be over. "We're still two hours out from our check-in. You really think we could hold that entrance?"

There was a pregnant pause, then an angry sigh.

If they were more mobile, it was clearly the better plan. If they could knock the Genii back into the city, get down the damn ramp, then they'd have a fighting chance. Guerilla tactics would work in the ruins, particularly when they had a Life Signs Detector and the Genii didn't.

But there was no way in hell he was leaving Rodney. Not while he was still breathing. There was nowhere to hide him without sealing him in the damn room, which Sheppard was pretty sure couldn't be done from the outside. And it would take all three of them to clear the city of the Genii. He had no doubt about that.

Teyla's voice floated over the stone, thoughtful. "John, how much C4 do you have left?"

\- x -

There were six dots, now, clustered in a tight group about ten yards away. Hoping their voices wouldn't carry, John thought darkly, but the sun-tunnel skylights brought the faintest murmurs of voices from its network of shafts and mirrors. Too distorted to make out words, but he didn't need them.

That rough-hew stone might have been good enough to fool a few Wraith drones, but apparently not pissed off Genii.

In the silence of the antechamber, McKay's breath caught, and Teyla gave John's shoulder a squeeze and retreated behind the stone pillars to Rodney.

Ronon stopped his nigh-silent pacing, hunching down at Sheppard's side, and he tilted the LSD so the Runner could see, scrolling back to show the temple complex. There were eleven total in the main temple. The six debating what to do with the fake wall they'd found, and the other five in the storage areas, probably helping their wounded man and digging through the Ancient artifacts that had been stored back there.

According to Ronon, all the crystals were cracked and useless. And whatever the twelve inch by eighteen inch . . . can . . . Rodney had been so fixated on was, the best John could get it to do was vibrate, ever so slightly. So now it was in Rodney's pack, in the corner out of sight. He could pretend it was a big score, it might buy their way out of this mess, if it came to it.

Looked like it was coming to it.

"What now?" Ronon's voice was soft.

Let them come in, or go out to them. Offense or defense.

John tapped the LSD, indicating the five in the storage areas. "I want them closer or out the door if we're gonna blow it." Having enemies on both sides of the doorway meant they could be pinned down, and would make the hallway hard to clear. If they could keep the Genii in the area closest to the temple entrance, they could blow some of their charges, make the Genii think the whole place was booby-trapped or unstable.

The six nearest dots broke up, two of them assembling themselves in a flanking position around the doorframe, and the other four coming to stand directly in front of the altar-top, fit neatly into its doorframe.

If he was going to blow a door he suspected someone was behind, he'd follow it up with a couple flash-bangs. He didn't think the Genii had stunning grenades, so letting them in seemed kind of stupid.

Offense it was.

Sheppard looked over the two pillars, which they'd paired, the longest sides facing the door to give them as much cover as possible. They probably would withstand a couple grenades, but he'd rather not test that if he didn't have to. The concussion would be staggering in the small, square space.

Teyla's forehead and eyes were visible, keeping Ronon and him in sight even as she attended to McKay. Of all the times that idiot would choose to wake up-

Sheppard signaled with one hand. _Two charges. West side. First one, ten count, second one._ Hopefully those in the storage area would think they had triggered a booby-trap, and hustle for the exit. When there were as many as possible in the blast radius of the door, he'd blow it.

Teyla's improvement was the equivalent of _them_ tossing a few flash-bangs, and he approved.

Sheppard fished the clacker Ronon had given him out of his tac vest, flicking the safety cap up, and did the same with the one he'd tucked in his thigh pocket. The clacker in his left hand controlled the hallway blasts, the one in his right, the altar-top. He retreated to the left side of the doorframe, and Ronon to the right. Teyla, he was sure, would duck when it was time.

Sheppard balanced the LSD on his knee, watching the dots. The four in front were gathered quite close, probably planting charges of their own. That could be good or bad, depending on how strong they were, and Sheppard frowned and clicked Ronon's clacker once.

 _Boom!_

A tiny tickle of dust was displaced from their skylight shaft, while the five dots in the back room swarmed around like the ghosts in Pac-Man when you ate some cherries. He could tell which two were helping the soldier that had shot McKay, and he waited until they weren't quite to the second archway when he clicked again.

 _Boom!_

He hoped some of that shrapnel hit them right in the neck.

The six in front of their antechamber had frozen, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and when the other group was beneath it, Sheppard blew the third charge, just for the hell of it. They already had momentum, if he could get the ones in the hall to draw their colleagues out, he wouldn't have to blow the main door just yet.

They were ten minutes late to check-in, it was only a matter of time before his radio would crackle and Atlantis would demand a sit-rep-

The five barreled past the antechamber, taking the others with them, and John blew the fourth and fifth charges in rhythm, watching the eleven dots scurry out the temple entrance.

Ronon was trying to catch his eye, and Sheppard nodded without looking up. The problem with not rigging the entrance to collapse was that he hadn't rigged the entrance to collapse. The Genii would be a lot more cautious, they might even wait until they had a combat engineer on site, but all they had done was buy some time.

 _Come on, Atlantis. Dial in._

\- x -

"They have not yet called in, Rodney, but . . . I am sure it will be soon."

John could hear them, behind their cover, though Teyla's voice was quite soft. McKay's breathing had been getting more agitated, and Ronon was back there now with Teyla. The LSD would show the same readings back there as at the doorframe, but Sheppard couldn't quite bring himself to join them.

Couldn't see his buddy laying against the sand and a downed Apache. Couldn't wake up with him dead in his arms.

"Maybe the Genii dialed out," came Ronon's quiet reply. "They know it's Sheppard. They know it's us."

That was probably true. It was about an hour and forty-three minutes after they should have checked in, and there was no way in hell Lorne would have let it go that long, let alone Elizabeth.

At least their makeshift brace was keeping Rodney from bleeding out. He wouldn't be as conscious as he was if the clotting agent and the pressure weren't doing their work. If they could just get him the hell out of here-!

John closed his eyes, rubbing them until he saw stars. The LSD indicated the Genii hadn't gone anywhere. They were still determined to get through that wall, either thinking there was something there that he'd denied them, or-

There was no way the Genii could know they were in there.

Right?

It was possible they'd stumbled across the cloaked Jumper. Not likely, but possible. The original ten were penetrating the temple again, just at the entrance of the large hall, and it was only a few minutes, tops, before they determined the archways were stable. If he toggled out as far as he could on the LSD, he could see another five in the ruins proper. But there was no way the Genii hadn't called for backup by now, especially if they were dialed out.

He was out of time.

Sheppard untangled himself, getting to his feet and shaking the pins and needles out of his legs before he came around the pillars. Neither Ronon nor Telya looked surprised; Rodney had his eyes closed, but little hiccups in his breathing indicated he was awake, at least awake enough to be in pain.

"Hey, Rodney."

Blue eyes flickered open, picking him out of the lengthening shadows.

"It's gonna get noisy in here. We need to give the Genii a reason to get lost." He crouched beside the scientist, inviting the rest of his team in with a quick look. "We're gonna blow the door as soon as there are enough of 'em near it. All tangos are to the east. We'll drive them out of the temple, then Ronon and I will peel off and get the jumper. If we can't, we'll take the 'gate. Teyla will stay here and provide cover." He glanced at the team, but they seemed comfortable with the plan.

"Worst comes to worst, she'll barter with that giant can of Dr. Pepper you dug up." She was a trader by vocation, and she had had a prior relationship with the Genii. If they were going to show any understanding, it would be to her. "No matter what happens, we're coming back. We're not leaving you behind. Got it?"

McKay looked at him, really looked, like it was an effort, like he was focusing all his attention on staring. Then he blinked, very deliberately, twice.

 _No._

John gave him a cock-eyed grin. "I'd stay with you, but I'm the only one who can fly the jumper, and let's face it, they like me better." He was pretty sure delivering him to Kolya, or better yet, Cowan, would net any one of those Genii out there at least two promotions.

 _No._

Rodney's mouth worked, his jaw twitching spasmodically, as if he was gagging, and his tongue jerked uncoordinatedly in his mouth.

Sheppard watched him closely, but the movements were too clumsy. John shook his head. "Sorry, buddy, I'm not getting it."

"We should not trade the . . . Dr. Pepper," Teyla translated hesitantly, and McKay blinked twice.

 _No._

"Is it a weapon?"

For a split second, it seemed like Rodney's eyebrows gathered in a scowl, and then he blinked twice, and then once.

No. Three times.

 _Rephrase the question._

"You don't want Teyla to give the Genii the Dr. Pepper."

Three blinks.

"You don't want us to leave."

 _No._

Sheppard frowned, then hazarded a glance at the LSD, and swore. There were at least seven Genii right outside the damn door-

"Showtime," he whispered, nodding at the altarstone, and though McKay made the gagging motion again, John shook his head, fishing his clacker out of his vest.

"Fire in the hole," he whispered, then grinned at Rodney, covered the scientist's ears, and pressed the button.

The noise was impressive; it was like a physical blow from inside his own chest. While he hadn't covered his own ears – and they were ringing – he'd left his mouth open, and kept breathing. That helped equalize pressure, made the concussion of the blast less disorienting.

That was a hell of a lot more of a blast than he'd been counting on. Clearly the Genii had added some kind of explosive of their own.

Ronon was already up and around their cover, and Sheppard flicked the safety off his P90, glancing quickly at Teyla before darting around himself. Ronon had already stunned two bodies lying outside in the hall, but it was hard to see through all the dust, and even through the ringing in his ears John could hear gunfire.

The LSD indicated that there were three life signs right in front of him – and Ronon was one, so they'd outright killed most of the Genii that had been trying to get in – and the remaining Genii were swarming up the ramp and into the temple. Great. Sheppard waited for the firm tag on his shoulder that indicated Teyla was behind him, and then he bolted across the hallway, counting on the darkness and dust to provide cover. The Genii were firing blindly, no suppressors on their pistols, and he targeted flashes of light and answered with some of his own.

Once his mag was empty he tossed it, pulling another out of his vest, and he risked another glance at the LSD. There were another twelve life signs approaching the temple, they'd come out of nowhere, and two left in the main entrance room down the hall. Teyla was in their antechamber doorway, and at his look she gave him a firm nod. She was entrenched and ready.

But there was no way in hell he and Ronon were going to get through so many Genii. It was fourteen against two.

With his ears ringing, he never heard them. Something small and hard bounced off his chest, and he looked down stupidly before he recognized the dull metallic ball rolling silently around his feet.

Instinct borne of a thousand games of hackey-sack had him punting the grenade back down the hall almost without thought, and his aim was true – it went sailing past Ronon, who was falling back, and he barely got his eyes closed before the flash hit. Hot wind hit him in the face, but thankfully it seemed little else, and he darted back across the hall for the antechamber. Teyla gave way, making room for the both of them, and another blast, scarily close, sent John stumbling over the threshold.

Ronon followed him in a second later, and John spun into a crouch, freeing the lone grenade they'd taken off the Genii soldier that had caused this mess. He pulled the pin, gave it a three count, then chucked it hard, at an angle, across the hall. It bounced off the wall to the right, back in the direction of the entrance room, and in another two seconds – eight in all – there was a muffled explosion. Ronon beat him out the door, firing again down the hall, and John took one last look at the LSD before he followed him.

There were still a hell of a lot of life signs in that entrance.

He never made it out of the antechamber. Ronon staggered backwards, Sheppard barely caught him, and he tripped over his own boots, sending them both sprawling back. His head cracked on the stone floor and John saw stars. He barely made out Ronon's left arm shooting out, catching something, and John watched a second glint of dull metal sail past the Satedan's outstretched hand, bouncing against the wall in their antechamber before tumbling back towards the pillars.

As if in a dream, he saw Teyla fall, curling up in a fetal position. Before she finished there was a muffled pop, and she leapt off the stone as if bitten. She fell back heavily, and didn't move again.

He blinked, sluggishly, and someone tossed a bag of concrete on the weight already laying across his chest. His P90 was pinned, and he was reaching for his nine mil when another flash blinded him. The dead weight on his chest took the hit, protected him, but he couldn't get his right arm free, and the light in the doorway flickered, shadows moving inhumanly fast -

\- x -

"Do you know why you're here?"

The voice was familiar, irritatingly so, and John Sheppard winced, prying his eyes open. The light wasn't terribly bright, some kind of fluorescent, and he blinked a few times, feigning more disorientation than he felt as he tried to figure out what the fuck was going on.

McKay. Teyla. Ronon.

"I personally train every one of my operatives," the voice continued. "Not that that's unique, certainly not to my people and probably not yours."

He was in a plain room, about ten by ten, slouched in the most uncomfortable wooden chair imaginable, all right angles and pokey bits. He must have been in it for quite some time, his back was stiff and his arms and legs ached fiercely. He dropped his head a little, hoping to catch sight of doors or windows, and he realized he was not bound to the chair. His wrists and arms were free of restraints.

In front of him, almost within reach, was a long wooden table. Upon it was laid the LSD, McKay's mystery can, and something that looked a little like an Ancient-ey shoe tree.

"I train them all to think like me. Do you know why I do that, John Sheppard of Atlantis?"

John shifted, making the motion look stiffer than it was, and he picked the speaker out, against the far wall. His dull grey uniform matched the concrete blocks rather nicely, as if he were part of them, and John wondered just how fuzzy his vision really was. "I'll bite," he said, his voice thick to his ears.

The nondescript Genii smiled drily. "Because everything can be solved with logic and reason. There is no benefit to succumbing to emotion."

"Good to know." John tried to stand before a sharp pain in his hip made his right leg give, and he hissed, for the first time seeing the stained bandage wrapped around his upper thigh. There was another, on his calf, and his right bicep felt a little shredded.

Grenade. He'd gotten caught in an explosion –

"You're here because of emotion," the Genii – Spock, John decided - continued calmly. "Had you pressed your advantage in your first attack, we would never have regrouped fast enough to stop you."

McKay. They couldn't, they couldn't safely move McKay-

Sheppard felt a distant spike of adrenaline. Teyla –

"Where's the rest of my team?" It was sharp, and Spock tsked gently.

"Your team is gone, John Sheppard."

Gone.

John took a breath, held it. He remembered. He remembered Teyla falling on the last grenade, the one that had gotten blasted into the room with them. He remembered Ronon, dead weight on his body -

"All but one."

Sheppard bared his teeth, forcing himself to his feet as Spock leaned off the wall. The man merely gestured towards a set of double doors, which were silently pulled open a second later to admit another Genii, another face he didn't know.

"The one you wouldn't leave behind."

A gurney trundled in behind the new guard, a dull green blanket stretched over a still form. John started forward but was stopped almost immediately when his left foot was yanked back. He almost pitched onto his face, and when he caught himself, his right arm and wrist burning, he glanced back to see a shining metal cuff around his left ankle. It was bound to a loop of metal set in the concrete floor, like the chair. Neither one looked like it was going to give anytime soon.

"We need you mobile, but not too mobile, you see," Spock's smooth voice continued. "You are aware the Genii generally lack the ability to use Ancient technology, yes?"

Sheppard pushed himself to his feet, glaring. "If you think I'm going to help you with that little problem, think again." But he had eyes only for the gurney, for the pale face at the far end of the blanket, held absolutely still as the bed was rolled to a stop.

Absolutely still except for his eyes.

Rodney McKay was alive, and his eyes were open.

Spock was merely nodding. "Commander Kolya said you'd be stubborn," he admitted. "Not like your teammate here. Dr. McKay has already discovered that cooperation has its . . . advantages."

The guards that had pushed the gurney in were settling it against the wall, manipulating it and the old-fashioned IV pole out of the way of a second stand of metal implements that reminded Sheppard very much of the Air Force dentist's office he'd had to visit to get his wings. They wouldn't let you up with any kind of dental issues, the pressure changes would hurt like hell.

McKay's eyes were darting between the guards and the wall, and if he tried really hard, it seemed like he could just barely catch a glimpse of John.

Son of a bitch.

"His injuries are substantial, but for the price of a little cooperation, he has received medical care. Painkillers. Antibiotics from your medical kits." Spock leaned off the wall, approaching McKay, and Sheppard barely recalled the ankle restraint in time. He pulled on it – hard – but the chain held fast.

And Spock gave him another dry smile. "It's true that he cannot feel anything below his neck, but I see this as an opportunity, to explore new options. This is how it went down in Atlantis, wasn't it? You, the strong soldier, and he, the weak civilian who gave away all your plans because of one little prick from a knife."

Sheppard said nothing, and McKay closed his eyes.

"So you see, this is how it works. You cooperate, or your teammate gets pricked."

". . . okay."

Sheppard was momentarily stunned; he was sure he had meant to say _If you touch him, I swear to God I'll kill you._ __But threats weren't going to get him squat. If they wanted him to initialize a few Ancient devices, that was a small price to pay.

If Ronon and Teyla were gone, if the Genii had kept an outgoing wormhole the entire time, then it didn't matter how thoroughly Lorne searched the city, how determinedly Zelenka tried to tease addresses out of the DHD. Atlantis would have no idea where they were. If Kolya and Cowan weren't here, he couldn't even be sure he was on the Genii homeworld. No matter what medical care they'd given McKay, he needed to get Rodney to Carson. He needed Atlantis.

The Genii version of Mr. Spock also looked a little surprised. "Really," he murmured.

Sheppard did his level best not to glare. "Send McKay back to Atlantis. I'll stay."

The other man barked a laugh. "My dear John Sheppard, you are in no position to make conditions." He turned to the man by McKay's head, and the guard made a show of adjusting a thin leather glove.

"He's dying," Sheppard ground. "You don't have the medical facilities here to keep him alive. Send him to Atlantis, and I'll cooperate. Hurt him, or let him die, and you get squat."

"You'll pardon my ignorance, but I was under the impression that Ancient devices work due to something in the blood, something exceptional, only possessed by certain people. Tell me, do you need to be conscious to turn these devices on?" The guard by McKay's head selected something that looked decidedly like a Dremmel with a cutting wheel attached, and McKay shuddered out a breath.

"Sometimes, yes," John growled. "Not everything will turn on just because I show up."

"So, it's just some devices, then," Spock mused, while the guard spun up the tool with a metallic whine. Definitely a Dremmel. "Let us see which ones are which, then."

God dammit, they were going to hurt him and there wasn't a damn thing John could do about it. If he caved now, there was no hope of bargaining for McKay's freedom. "You're making a mistake-"

Spock shook his head, slowly. "You made the mistake, John Sheppard, when you let emotion cloud your judgement. Now you must deal with the consequences."

John struggled vainly against the chain, shouting in McKay's place when the guard gently pried Rodney's mouth open, pressing the cutting disk against one of his teeth.

\- x -

 **Author's Notes:** Sorry for the cliffie, I got a little carried away on length. At least it won't be a one-shot the likes of PAA . . . = D The other half should be posted shortly! In the meantime, don't panic. This fic really isn't as dark as it looks. Since the prompts were "Scare the crap out of John" and "Confuse McKay . . ."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see **Author's Notes** at the end.

\- x -

On the third day he yielded.

He didn't have a choice. Whatever the hell the Genii were giving Rodney, it was keeping him alive, and John wasn't willing to let them continue the abuse.

He knew they would. Indefinitely.

Spock had been good about gloating, too – he hadn't. Not really. His mannerisms were eerily similar to that of the solder that had shot McKay, John guessed harkening back to his earlier statement that he taught his men to be like him.

Logic and reason his ass. There was nothing logical or reasonable about torturing a guy who couldn't even speak.

Pointing that out had earned him a seemingly sincere smile, but it hadn't bought McKay one second of respite. Not until he deliberately reached out and picked up the Ancient equivalent of a sunglasses case did they stop.

"Show us the purpose of one of these devices and we will provide him medicine," Spock murmured, somewhere behind him and to the right, always on his bad side. Always the threat implicit.

Even if Rodney didn't survive, one way or another, they were going to keep up the carrot and the stick routine.

And Rodney's survival was going to depend on that medicine. They left the room quiet, made sure he could hear McKay breathe. In the last day and a half, more and more often there was a wet crackle on his inhalations. His lungs were filling with mucous and fluid, that he wasn't capable of coughing up. The Genii knew it; they'd propped him up a little on pillows, which had only served to make it that much more visible to him when McKay was in pain.

Rodney had stopped looking at him, preferring instead to keep his eyes closed when he could.

"Give me something that's not broken or out of power and I will," Sheppard growled, turning the useless thing over in his hands. It wasn't likely they were going to give him anything useful, anything that even hinted at being a weapon, but this crap . . .

Sheppard tossed what amounted to a small brick back into the pile, extending a hand over everything else. Nothing lit by proximity, but he made a show of picking up a long metal dowel, palming the device beneath it.

One of the two of them was active.

"I have only your word that these items are nonfunctional."

John's lips twitched. "Have I ever lied to you?" he drawled.

Not the dowel. He was pretty sure he'd seen something like it on Atlantis, some kind of glorified magnetic screwdriver, but of course it was only useful if paired with magnetic screws, and apparently they didn't have any of those.

He replaced the dowel, shuffling the rest of the devices around and careful to conceal the one he still palmed. With his luck, it was no more than an Ancient pocketwatch, the right shape and weight, but whatever it was, it still had power.

"This is junk," Sheppard said again. "What did you do, go Ancient dumpster diving?"

Spock gave him a droll look. "Until you demonstrate some actual cooperation, John Sheppard, we have no reason to trust you."

Hah! But he could trust them . . . trust them to take it out on Rodney. Sooner or later he was going to have to provide at least a token. Still, something told him to keep the pocketwatch to himself.

"I am cooperating," he said between clenched teeth.

Spock came around, then, eyeing him up and down, and John had a brief moment of self-consciousness. What if his sleight of hand had been seen? It wasn't just Rodney that wasn't getting food, it was him too, and fatigue had set in a while back. They weren't letting him eat, letting him sleep much, trying to keep him off balance-

But Spock finally passed him, heading not to where McKay lay, always in sight and out of reach, but to the intercom on the wall.

"Send in another tray," he said, in his measured tones, and Sheppard closed his eyes against the relentless fluorescent lights and the bland gaze of Spock the Genii commander.

God, he was tired.

 _Open._

Nothing.

"I suppose you would like something to eat as well."

He frowned, eyes still closed.

 _On._

The thing remained inert.

 _Off?_

"John Sheppard."

 _Turn into something I can use to get the hell out of here!_

In his hand, the device clicked soundlessly, and John's eyes flicked open in surprise.

Spock stared at him, and when he said nothing, the man gave a measured sigh.

"You should save your strength. Hating me won't change your situation."

John gave him a sarcastic smile, letting it fade after a moment and slouching into the uncomfortable wooden chair. In his hand, the device soundlessly clicked again. He let his right hand drop into his lap, massaging his aching wrist with his left while he glanced down at it.

It looked much the same as before, a burnished brash and copper disk with a small decorative prong at the top. But the more he looked at it, the more it seemed the copper disk inset into the brass was actually a large button.

"I have other things to attend to. Do not forget our arrangement."

John refused to acknowledge him, still staring sightlessly at his hands, and he waited impatiently for Spock to look him over, approve of the obvious dejection, and leave him to think about what he'd done. His rebellious teenager mask slipped when Spock instead headed towards McKay, and his hand tightened on the device as Spock laid a hand on Rodney's shoulder.

"His mind seems to be fraying," Spock noted. "Were I to be trapped in my own body, unable even to speak, I do not think I would remain sane. Why have you chosen to put him through this?"

The device in his hand was starting to warm up, and he rubbed his thumb against the copper disc.

"If you care for him, you should have finished the job," Spock continued. "Survival without purpose is not life."

 _Key fob,_ John thought with a start. It felt like a wireless key, or a remote control for an overhead projector. Without quite knowing why, he held it up, pointed the prong at Spock's half-turned face, and clicked the button.

He barely saw it, the faintest of blue beams, and the concrete behind Spock popped with a bit of smoke. The Genii flinched, staring not at John but the wall, and he realized what it was.

Ancient laser pointer. A very, very strong one.

Of course. Everything on that tray had reminded him of crap you'd find in a toolbox. This time he held the button down, targeting not the Genii but the chain at his ankle. The blue beam cut the first link like butter, but the going was too slow and Spock was already drawing his pistol. Without releasing the button, John drew the laser up and across Spock's chest, intending to target the gun.

Spock stared at him, uncomprehendingly, pistol raised waist-high. And then his upper torso slipped a little to the right, and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

John blinked, momentarily stunned, and it wasn't until the smell hit him that he shook himself, and turned again to his manacle. Another few seconds had the second link cut, and then he was up and out of the hated chair. Spock had summoned another batch of Ancient crap, they didn't have a lot of time. He picked up the Genii's pistol, almost shooting him reflexively when the man blinked up at him.

Jesus. He was still alive.

Spock opened his mouth slightly, as if to speak, but his lungs had been severed by the laser, and nothing came out.

No pithy retort came unbidden to his lips, so John didn't spare him another thought. He stepped over the dying Genii, giving McKay a quick once-over. Rodney was looking at him, eyes wide, and he blinked twice, then twice again.

John gave him a broad grin. "You can't say no yet. You don't even know what I'm thinking." He pulled the tape off the IV lines, wincing though he knew Rodney couldn't feel it, and in another moment had McKay free of peripherals. The gurney was on wheels, which was handy since he knew he couldn't carry him. He stooped by Spock one more time, patting him down for spare magazines, and to his relief it appeared the man was dead.

"Come on, Rodney, let's get out of here."

He eased the gurney out of direct line of sight of the double doors, then cracked one open. The hallway outside was the same drab concrete, wide enough for a Jeep, and there were no side rooms or another else resembling cover. Not so good. John dared to duck his head out, checking both directions, and he found a set of double doors to the right. To the left, the hall terminated in a 90 degree turn.

Double doors usually indicated a security checkpoint or a firewall.

John glanced back at the gurney, and Rodney opened his mouth a little, making the gagging motion again.

"I'll be right back, buddy. Sit tight." Then he winced at his own words and was out the door, jogging towards the right. There were no cameras in the hallway, nothing but the maddening fluorescent lights, and his footsteps were oddly muted as he approached. The double doors had thin panes of glass, reminding him a little of his high school, and he paused for a moment, checking for motion.

There was none.

John approached the doors, listening intently, and they burst open in his face, a wheeled cart trundling noisily through.

Sheppard backpedaled furiously, bringing up the pistol and sighting the startled looking Genii. Same one, it was the same guy that had –

He twitched for his gun and Sheppard dropped him.

The cart was in the way, propping open the doors, and John could see a security desk to the left. It was occupied, another soldier he didn't recognize, and John shot him before he could stand. Though there was no one else visible, a red light near the ceiling began to flash, and John swore, kicking the cart of Ancient gadgets out of the way. There was still a body in the middle of the floor, but Sheppard left him there, sprinting back down the hall.

McKay was right where he left him, and John gave him a tight grin, hauling the gurney as roughly as he dared towards the doors. "Time to go."

They went tearing down the fall, Sheppard mindful of any motions that caused Rodney's head to wobble, but the thick pillows did a pretty good job of stabilizing him, and he let the gurney go, darting ahead of it to cover Rodney and shove the dead Genii out of the way. The security guard was still slumped at his desk, and a quick look told him no one else had shown up.

Yet.

This hall was a lot more interesting, a little like what he remembered of Cheyenne Mountain. There were colored lines painted on the floor, a few signposts here and there indicator other corridors, and utility pipes snaked along the ceiling. He vaguely recalled that exit signs in Genii facilities were typically black, and there was a black line on the floor, so –

"Here goes nothing," he muttered, and dragged the ungainly gurney into the hallway, jogging alongside it. His right wrist ached fiercely, but his fingers were tight and sure around the pistol, and he slid a little on the concrete as he tried to drag them to a stop at a hallway interchange. The black line curved right.

Sheppard risked a glance, and not five yards away, the line terminated in a door. In both directions, the way was clear.

This time he pushed the gurney, keeping himself between the open hallway and Rodney, and when they reached the door, he circled the bed, pistol ready. The doorknob turned easily in his hand, and he yanked it open, revealing –

Stairs.

It was a fucking flight of stairs. Poorly lit, slightly damp stairs.

John swallowed a curse, easing along the banister and looking up the stairwell.

It was a lot of fucking flights of stairs.

There was no way he was going to get that gurney up those stairs.

Somewhere behind them, a door slammed open, and the rapid patter of boots echoed down the hall.

God dammit.

John crouched at the base of the gurney, catching the stairwell door with his hip before it could close. It wasn't the collapsible kind, the legs were fixed, and of course Rodney wasn't tied down. He was wearing his belt, but McKay wasn't – he wasn't wearing anything but the damn blankets – and maybe the sheet was long enough to tie around the bed, but he'd have to drag him up the stairs on the thin mattress, and his neck was only being held steady by a couple pillows.

He couldn't get him out.

John rubbed four days of stubble and swore, quietly. Okay. There had to be another way out. The Genii had elevators, they had to have gotten all the furniture and equipment down here somehow. He needed to clear a path, get a general layout. See what their options were.

The footsteps seemed to suddenly muffle, and John gave Rodney what he hoped was an encouraging look, easing a glance around the corner. A young Genii soldier was crouched by the security desk, checking the dead guard, and the others must have gone down the hallway. They'd find Spock soon enough, but the trail of bodies was going to get cold fast. It was easy to figure out which way he'd come.

John checked the magazine. Twelve bullets minus the two he'd used. The spare mag had another twelve. And the laser pointer. He should have picked up another pistol off the dead guard.

Instead, he crept back around the corner, pushing the gurney until the edge came up under the doorknob. Rodney was staring at him, eyes imploring, and John shrugged.

"Keep the door shut for me," he whispered.

Rodney blinked twice.

 _No._

Sheppard frowned at him, ear cocked back to the hall. "Rodney, we don't have time for this-"

 _NO._

His mouth opened, again with the gagging motion. This time he managed to make a wet snap by moving his tongue where two teeth used to be, but not a whisper of speech.

Gah. No, his tongue was going up. Gall.

Gall.

Brendan Gall.

Rodney stared at him, willing him to understand, his breathing shuddering a little. And John didn't know what to say.

That Wraith had done the same damn thing. Crippled Dr. Brendan Gall, knowing that the humans wouldn't leave their companion to die.

Knowing that eventually Gall would, and there was nothing they could do for him.

In the end, Gall had taken the decision away from McKay. That gunshot had been self-inflicted. He'd known McKay was never going to leave him, even though they both knew Sheppard himself was no match for that super-Wraith. And if the young doc hadn't done it, Rodney wouldn't have been there to save his ass, and they all would have died.

"Rodney," he faltered.

McKay closed his mouth, a little lopsided, looking suddenly so much like himself that it physically hurt. He closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them again, and they were watering but resolute.

 _Yes._

But Rodney wasn't staring at certain death. If they got him back to Atlantis, maybe back to Earth-

Then he'd be on a ventilator for the rest of his life, communicating only in yes and no.

"McKay . . ."

 _Yes._

We don't leave men behind.

He hadn't left Holland behind, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start with McKay.

Rodney must have seen the look in his eye, and his tears were clearly of frustration. _Yes!_

Voices, down the hall. They were splitting up to start the search. They knew he was armed, they knew he had McKay with him.

If he left Rodney here, if he fled up the stairs, they wouldn't shoot McKay. They'd keep him alive and use him as leverage against Atlantis. Against him.

But for pete's sake, this was Rodney! His survival instinct was hardcoded into the fabric of his being. Even now he couldn't be suicidal. Even now he couldn't _want_ to die.

. . . right?

"No," he said aloud. "No, Rodney. We stick together."

Rodney closed his eyes, openly weeping, and his breath hitched. John turned back to the hallway, checking the pistol, and then he stepped around the corner, acquiring his first target.

\- x -

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS IS WRONG WITH YOU, SOLDIER!"

Sheppard physically flinched, almost breaking attention, and Spock stepped right up into his face. Only it wasn't Spock, and yet it was. The Genii uniform was gone, replaced by unfamiliar but universal black BDUs. There was an insignia on his arm that Sheppard didn't recognize. But the voice, the face -

Spock took a deep, cleansing breath. "How many times will it take to get through your skull?"

This . . . had happened before . . .

John Sheppard blinked, and memory came flooding back. Rodney, trapped waist-deep in a rockslide, with Wraith on the way. Teyla, indecision plain on her face as he ordered her to leave them in the cage. Ronon, giving him a look that said he would refuse anything but a direct order, even with incoming fire pinging on the alabaster walls around them.

And always, Rodney. Trapped. Crippled. Dying. Impossible situations, and then he'd return here, for a . . . debriefing?

"What imbecile placed you in command of anything?" Spock inquired drolly, as though his outburst had never happened. "Oh, that's right. The one who knew you were unfit. The one you shot and killed. Of all the people you _won't_ sacrifice, you had no qualms killing your superior officer on your first mission with him."

Sumner.

Sheppard blinked, then broke formation and glanced down at himself. Same not quite right black BDUs. Same ensign on his own shoulder patch. Only he was missing the two shiny black pins on his lapel. He was standing on a solid black line in a large barracks, his rackmates at attention by their own bunks. He didn't recognize a one of them.

What the hell was going on?

Spock rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if warding off an oncoming headache. "What did you do wrong, soldier? No, on second thought, what did you do right?" He paused, eyebrow raised inquiringly, and Sheppard balked. "Anything? Did you do anything right? Do you even know? Let's start at the beginning."

Spock gestured behind him, and John unwillingly looked toward his bunk. It felt like hooks sank into his eye sockets, dragging him back to the first moments in the temple, when he had turned the corner and startled an equally unsuspecting Genii soldier. The scene froze, and Spock strode through, hands clasped behind his back, pacing behind the comically surprised Genii.

"You didn't shoot him instantly," Spock noted. "That was correct. Why was that correct?"

John just stared at Spock, stupidly. "Uh . . . who are you?"

The man gave him a look. "You get better intel from the living than the dead. And you knew that. That thought actually consciously crossed your atrophied little brain. Let's continue, shall we?"

"Wait-"

But the scene fast-forwarded, breathlessly, the gunfight, the retreat through the hallway, the Genii ducking into an antechamber – and coming back out with his hostage.

Here Spock paused the tape. "You took this shot once before, to save your civilian boss. But not here. Why not?"

John felt a little like he was flailing, as if he was back in basic getting his balls busted. "The Genii are on again off again allies and I'm not just gonna kill someone if I don't have to-"

"Yes, you certainly proved that," Spock interrupted, and just like that Ronon sent a shot winging past McKay's ear, taking out an innocent decorative shell. They fell, and then the scene slowed, Spock actually striding between the first and second shots John had fired off. With time essentially frozen, he could see how both shots landed a little higher than he'd intended, because the Genii had been ducking with Rodney before the bullets left the barrel.

But even if they hadn't been high, he was only out to wound –

 _And why the hell am I having to defend myself to this guy_? "Listen, I don't really know what's going on here-"

"What's going on here is that you and Specialist Dex got your civilian killed." It was dry, and Spock gestured, to the exact moment the Genii's pistol found the sweet spot, his finger tightening on the trigger, point blank, the bullet exiting Rodney's neck even as Ronon's stun blast hit the Genii.

The look of pure shock on Rodney's face. The exact moment his body rag-dolled, a useless sack of meat housing a brilliant mind that could no longer pilot it.

"Don't raise a weapon you don't intend to use." Spock chanted it, almost like a litany. "Never wound an enemy."

John tore his eyes away from McKay's, finding it unnaturally hard, and focused on his . . . messed up drill sergeant. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the poor soul required to get you back up to active status." Spock looked like he was still deciding how he felt about that. "And given how determinedly you kill your team in every simulation, and sometimes your commanding officers, I'm considering a permanent discharge."

There was something . . . disturbing . . . about the way he said that, and Sheppard bit back an angry retort. Okay, this was weird –

"Leaving him alive gave the enemy intel they never should have had." Spock gestured, at the Genii helping their wounded comrade to his feet, having untied him – and Ronon hadn't been kidding, he had trussed that guy up like a Christmas tree – and Sheppard could lip-read the world 'Atlantis'.

"But even before that, there's this." He gestured at them – Ronon by the archway, reporting on Genii movement in the square. He and Teyla struggling with stopping the bleeding. The look on his own face. The second realization had hit him.

"You knew that was a fatal injury." For once, Spock sounded a little sorrowful. "You knew right then that he was going to die, and that if you didn't fall back to a more defensible position, you were going to lose the rest of your team. You _knew_ it, soldier."

John forced his eyes closed, finding himself unsurprised when he they flew open a second later, as if they were no longer his to command.

"You knew then that you should have left him, taken the remainder of the team, and cleared out the city. You could have come back for him. You were even willing to take lives at that point, if _that_ expression is anything to go by."

Sheppard tried to look anywhere but at what the . . . man, the thing? . . . was trying to show him. "What did you do to me?"

This had happened before. How many times before?

But Spock went on as if John hadn't spoken. "And then, then you committed what became the fatal mistake for Teyla Emmagen and Specialist Dex. Do you know what that was?"

Sheppard shook his head, as if to clear it, and just as suddenly, his head was trapped in a vice. He could not look away, he couldn't even blink. Spock was watching him intently.

"I asked you a question, soldier."

. . . what?

"What was your fatal flaw?"

John growled, but he could not break the invisible hold. "Listen, pal –"

"What was your fatal flaw."

Anger – and no small amount of fear – had him replying without thinking. "If you think refusing to leave one of my team to die alone or be captured by the Genii is a _mistake_ -"

Spock brushed it off. "It was, undoubtedly. But not the worst you made."

At a loss to do anything other than stare at the scene, Sheppard did so. Now the three of them were manhandling the altar-stone into place, buying time in the hope Atlantis would send reinforcements. He obviously hadn't been able to see either Ronon or Teyla at the time, but here, where he was forced to stand in the back of the room, he could see that Rodney had been awake, listening. He could see Teyla and Ronon exchanging a look, as they often did when they thought he couldn't see.

It was a look shared by two natives of Pegasus. Two people who knew how things worked in Pegasus. Two people who knew that Earth rules didn't apply, and no combination of confidence, arrogance, ignorance, and luck was going to work one hundred percent of the time.

"You counted on reinforcements," Spock agreed quietly. "You bet all your lives on hope, that someone would come save you." When John didn't immediately speak, Spock threw his hands in the air. "I gave you a fallback point with a confounded _altar_ in the middle of the room! I could not have hit you over the head any harder with the solution unless I had physically done so!"

Altar. Cadaver table. Sacrifice the wounded man. Do what had to be done.

" _Yes_!" Spock cried, triumphant. "Exactly that!"

John could feel his teeth grinding. At least he still had control of his mouth. "That's not how we operate." _Not how I operate._

"It needs to be." Spock inhaled slowly, snorting when it was clear his pupil didn't agree. "Your fellow soldiers were killed. You and a civilian were captured by the enemy. And not just _any_ civilian." He gestured, at a scene John had never seen. Of Genii rushing around a medical tent, cutting off McKay's uniform, peeling back the soaked bandages as Rodney could do nothing more than squeeze his eyes closed and pretend it wasn't happening

"Look at him." There was no gentleness now. Sheppard couldn't do anything but, not when Spock himself entered the theater, asking questions. The scene shifted, a faceless Genii holding a document in front of McKay's face, some kind of missile design, and McKay trying to look anywhere else. A male nurse approached with a syringe of something, received a nod from the soldier, and he didn't even need to pin Rodney down as he injected whatever it was into the muscles of Rodney's jaw, his eyes dilated with pain.

"You could have saved him all of that." They were by the stairs, now, waiting for the Genii to find and shoot them. Sheppard standing there at the side of the gurney, McKay begging with his eyes. And then John saw himself raise the gun.

"You ready?" he heard himself ask.

Rodney just closed his eyes.

"That didn't happen," Sheppard ground, even as he watched himself pulling the trigger, just as he had with Sumner.

"All that suffering, not to mention the security implications, and what was it worth? Either he died by their hand, or he died by yours."

And then he was standing at his bunk again, at stiff attention, and Spock regarded him.

"So, soldier. Do you know what you did wrong? You _took a civilian into the field._ You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done. You depended on rescue. And you let emotion cloud your judgement." Spock turned ninety degrees on his heel.

"We go again."

\- x -

Teyla Emmagen wandered back into the room, P90 cradled in the crook of her elbow, and she found herself unexpectedly smiling.

Rodney was grinning to himself from ear to ear, tapping away on the keyboard, perched on the rotting stool that had doubtlessly been left there for just such a purpose. Both Sheppard and Ronon were as they had been, though they had lost their smirks, and she walked with more purpose across the lab towards them.

Dr. McKay glanced up, his grin never faltering. "Pretty sure Sheppard's kicking his ass," he reported, a little smugly, and Teyla's smile broadened a moment before she schooled it into something more serious. His happiness was infectious, and surely if he was so at ease, nothing could be the matter. Still . . .

"And you are sure they are fine?"

"Absolutely. All the monitoring is active and nominal, see? Brain activity, heart rate, blood chemistry." He was toggling through images on the console. "Huh," he added after a moment. "Not actually sure how it's doing that, seeing as the pallets haven't taken a blood sample. Must be the analysis of light frequencies passing through the capillaries in their fingers. Er, the same way those, uh, little fingertip blood gas clamps of Carson's work," he added as an afterthought.

Teyla inclined her head in thanks for the additional clarification. He did that occasionally, and more often for her than anyone else. Extra information to help her place a comment, a joke, a piece of technology they took for granted. When he was in a good mood, it was done the way he had done just then; easily, gladly, without judgement or condescension.

It wasn't always done in a good spirit, however. More often than not, Rodney was . . . how did John put it?

Crabby.

Yes, more often than not Rodney was as a crustacean unhappily finding himself on the rocky shoreline, brandishing his claws at anyone who came too close.

Luckily, he was much less dangerous than the crabs of Athos. Shorter, for one thing.

McKay was happily prattling on. "They were very good with light, whoever these people were. This is the first civilization we've seen in Pegasus that developed to the point of solar power generation. Very likely due to the unique characteristics of their sun, and of course the planet's vegetation, which take photosynthesis to a new level. This place never lost power, not even during whatever event wiped them out."

A Culling, she had no doubt.

"Well, you were there when we scanned from the air." Rodney did not seem to realize that he was still talking. "The leaves themselves are essentially tiny solar panels, in a way the majority of carbon-based plant life could never be. And they are very specific about the ranges of infrared and ultraviolet they harvest, so all the reject light, the reflected spectrums would have played havoc with the Wraith sensors just like they did with ours. It's too bad the Wraith finally figured out they were here." It sounded almost wistful.

Teyla quickly tried to look more engaged as he glanced at her. "Yes," she agreed swiftly. "It is always a . . . shame . . . when an entire civilization is completely wiped out by the Wraith."

McKay hmmed agreement, tapping a few more keys before his brain caught up with her tone. "Oh, uh, yes, of course," he stammered. "Sorry, but yeah, this was a big shame. If they had gone undetected just a few more years, they might have solved their flight problems. This civilization had harnessed unlimited, totally clean power. If they'd gotten their air force off the ground they would have given a Hive a run for their money."

"Their flight problems?"

"Mmm, yes," he murmured. But then he was silent, his attention on another screen, and she wandered over to the pallet where Ronon Dex lay peacefully on his back. The machine did not look complicated; it was just a resting slab, a decaying gel cushion atop plastic that retracted only a foot or so into the wall, where a ring of green lights danced just over Ronon's forehead.

She glanced at the other slab, where Sheppard lay, also beneath green lights. She had learned that green typically meant good, at least to these people, and she studied the displays a moment, seeking a pattern to their blinking.

"The rest of the facility is similarly powered," she said aloud, as much for them as for McKay. "Most is in disarray, as this room is. I saw no evidence that anyone had been here for some time. There are large facilities I believe may have been barracks for their armed forces."

"Well, that makes sense," McKay replied absently.

If he was right about what it was that two of their teammates were now attached to. "You are certain they are experiencing . . . 'war games'?"

"Oh yes." The glee was back in his voice. "It's ingenious. See, that module above their head is basically just storage. Storage in fiber, which is brilliant and just what I would expect from a civilization that was able to figure out a touch of the Ancient crystal technology as well as one so focused on light technologies." He hopped up off the stool, which seemed to slump in relief, and reached above Sheppard's head, simply pulling the wall open like a dresser drawer. Inside it there were swirls of translucent hair, all the strands brightly lit and every color imaginable.

"This represents petabytes of data," he told her. "What the game does is actually upload a copy of part of their consciousness, rather than the mess of having to actually, you know, interface with an actual brain, and it allows them to experience everything at supercomputer speeds. It's a lot like dreaming."

Teyla blinked at him over the console. "How is this like dreaming?"

"Oh, I just mean, you know, when you're dreaming that you're walking in the woods, and you're lost, and it seems like days and you even dream falling asleep and waking up still in the dream . . . " He trailed off at her expression. "It's very common," he assured her, his voice suddenly more businesslike. "The point is, you experience time differently when you're dreaming, because your brain isn't limited by having to actually experience things through your nerves and eyes and ears. You can dream as fast as thought."

She was alarmed that his explanation actually made sense. "So they are able to learn tactics and gain experience in a very short amount of time."

He snapped his fingers. "Exactly. Now, we know they're combat simulations because they're labeled in the system that way. It uploads part of their consciousness, determines their role in the armed forces, and then assigns them a commander. That commander runs them through simulations specific to their role, and when they wake up a few hours later, they've experienced the equivalent of weeks of training."

Okay, now he was losing her. "I thought you said they were playing against one another?"

"Oh, yes, yes. The system isn't artificial intelligence. They were decades from that. The commanding officers running scenarios were actually people, presumably their actual commanding officers. Those officers would choose the simulations and off they'd go. Since the only ones hooked up are Sheppard and Ronon, the system won't imitate training. It will have switched to a simple game. You know, Capture the Flag, Fetch, whatever it is soldiers play against each other."

"Ah," Teyla said, glancing back down at Ronon. He looked calm, his breathing was peaceful and there was no sweat on his brow, but his eyebrows seemed to be trying to knit. "And how did you conclude that Colonel Sheppard is winning?"

"Heh," and McKay rubbed his hands together. "When you do something the system deems wrong, you receive a small electric shock through that conductive gel pad. Just enough to sting. Probably to simulate getting shot, or blown up or something."

"And Ronon has received more of these than Colonel Sheppard?"

Rodney deflated slightly. "Well, not really so much in quantity, not by much of a margin. But Ronon is getting two or three at a time, and Sheppard only gets one, maybe two at a time. If I'm right and the shocks represent either mistakes or damage, it's equivalent to Ronon shooting Sheppard with a gun, and Sheppard shooting Ronon with a tank."

They had certainly looked eager enough to play, Teyla remembered. Both of them confident in their ability to best the other, they had approached it exactly like their video game tournaments. With Ronon's past in the Satedan military, she could kind of understand it, but when she was distracting herself she preferred a good book. Or the game with the nonsensical name where you rolled a sticky ball much bigger than yourself around a room, trying to pick up objects to make the ball grow in size.

She turned, to ask him if he knew when they would be finished, and felt something slick glide under her boot. It was a liquid, dark against the dirt-covered floor, and as she studied it, a droplet landed where her boot had been. She followed it up with her eyes, to the pallet, and against the pale white it was obviously blood.

"Rodney."

"Oh, a tank is like-"

" _Rodney_." The blood was coming from Ronon's right hand, which she hadn't noticed was curled in a tight fist. She grabbed his wrist, trying to turn it, but his forearm was rigid, though his arm bent easily at the elbow. The blood was dripping from his fingernails –

No. Where his fingernails were cutting into his palm.

"Rodney, wake them. Now."

He was standing on the other side of the console, and when she lifted Ronon's arm up so he could see the blood, all the jollity drained from his face. "Yeah. Yeah, right, doing it-"

She laid his arm down gently, listing to McKay's rapid-fire typing, and looked at the other pallet, where John lay, also seemingly peaceful. His fists weren't clenched, but water glittered in the corners of his closed eyes.

"Rodney!"

"Working on it," came his terse response. Then, "What the hell . . . ?"

She hurried around the console, unsure what she intended to do, and McKay moved to a second keyboard, typing commands. "No, no no no . . . they're not in a training simulation, so why won't . . ." He looked helplessly at the main console, which showed all the monitoring, still green. "Who would design a system where the administrator couldn't override a simulation?" It would have been plaintive if it wasn't so annoyed.

She knew it was rhetorical, but she answered anyway. "If they are in military training, the only one who could dismiss them would be their superior officer."

"Well, yeah, of course, but there isn't one of those!" He turned to her as if he intended to continue berating her, then stopped. "Unless . . ." He was swift on his feet, but not a trained warrior, and she correctly predicted his direction, moving smoothly out of the way as he came to occupy the space she had been standing in not a second before.

He pulled out a third keyboard, one that had been inset in the console, and a previously blank monitor came on fuzzily. He frowned at it, tapping a few keys in irritation before the system initialized. The data didn't mean anything to her, but he straightened hesitantly, suddenly unsure.

"No no no no no, not possible. Not possible."

"Can we simply not pull them out?"

He shook his head, returning to the first keyboard, toggling again through screens. "No. Maybe. It should only be grabbing a piece of their consciousness, not their whole minds, and only a copy. It uploads, teaches, and downloads. They're not in the download stage yet, so . . . probably, but then why . . ."

He paused, eyes sightlessly scanning the room. "Storage," he said suddenly. He darted around the console, pulling open the compartment above Ronon's head, and stared at the seemingly random network of glowing hair.

Wasn't that supposed to be Ronon's consciousness? "Rodney-"

"Not his, I need –" He selected a few of them, tracing them back further into the panel, almost further than he could reach. "That." Then he was back at the console, back to the third keyboard, and he typed in a few commands. On the screen, a green box turned yellow, and then the green lights above Ronon and Sheppard's pallets blinked rapidly, and bounced from one side of the semi-circle to the other before flashing twice and going dark.

She waited expectantly, but nothing else happened.

McKay stared at Ronon in dismay. "Oh crap."

\- x -

"Teyla, go! That's an order!"

Her right arm was torn, blood drawing a web down her wrist, but she spun the stick in her left with all the grace she used in the sparring ring to make him regret doubting her. Her smile was all teeth.

"I will not leave you here alone."

God dammit! He yanked the magazine from his P90, counting. Seven rounds. Her tac vest was long gone, and he glanced at Ronon, getting a dull shake of his head. He'd already lost too much blood, he was barely conscious as it was.

They couldn't hold off the next wave.

"Go." The Satedan slurred even that one word. "Gomm'blasser. Holdum. Go."

Teyla was still on her feet. They could head for the waterfall. It would throw them off the scent, give them a chance to get to high ground, maybe circle back around to the Gate –

And Ronon would get off one, maybe two shots. If they were point blank.

He cast a glance at Rodney, white as a sheet, a little bit of green foam dripping from his nostril. His eyes were open, but no one was home. His mind was gone.

"Surrender or die," the man called up from below, and Sheppard chambered the first of seven rounds and caught Teyla's eyes, held them.

 _Let's do it._

Her grin was nearly feral, and together they waited.

The jungle vanished, suddenly, and he found himself standing in what looked like a large barracks. He was at parade rest, hands behind his back, facing another solider, one he didn't know. The man nodded to him, turned ninety degrees, and fell in with his bunkmate, walking the long black line towards the mess.

Sheppard blinked, casting a look around, and the man beside him got tired of waiting, marching around him with the dozens of other men, all following that black line out the door. They were all wearing black BDUs, but not SCG issue, and there was an unfamiliar insignia on their shoulders.

He fingered the patch on his own arm, curiously. He remembered –

Rodney. Ronon. Teyla.

And . . . Spock?

As if he was compelled, he turned as well, if not as crisply as the other soldiers, and he followed them towards the far door. He was hungry, he realized, and his eyes felt grainy, like he'd spent too much time staring into the ice fields -

He brought up a hand, rubbing them, squeezing the water out and blinking it away. The light was brighter, and he was on his back-

What the hell?

Seemed as good a place to start as any. ". . . what the hell?" His voice sounded rusty with disuse, and he dropped his hand, staring at a white ceiling being slowly overgrown by bright blue vines.

And then it was as if someone dropped him in ice water. He remembered it.

All of it.

Sheppard sat up sharply, barely aware of someone grabbing his bicep, steadying him. They were on the planet with the blue trees. Solar panels. Cool virtual reality war games.

"Rodney –" he started to growl, and then he could see Rodney in his mind. Shot. Crushed. Missing limbs. Every time, his choices, his mistakes. Over and over again.

"-ppard, can you hear me?"

He focused on a face – Teyla's eyes, wide with concern. "Colonel?"

He nodded, easing off the squishy pallet and testing his weak knees. "Yeah, I'm good. Rodney, what the _hell_ was that?"

The room was as he remembered, it looked a little like the hotel from Jurassic Park after it got overgrown. With blue plants. McKay was on the other side of the control board, staring slack-jawed at Ronon, who was just releasing him from what had apparently been a bear hug. The Satedan caught his eye, and John realized with a start that he'd seen the same things.

" . . . never take a civilian into the field."

That hadn't been what he'd meant to say.

Ronon looked deeply disturbed. "Can't undo what's been done."

"Don't count on rescue."

"Don't let emotion cloud your judgement."

Teyla was looking between the two of them, confusion evident. "Colonel . . . I don't understand-"

"The training sim." McKay's voice sounded strained, and it was like he'd just realized he was still within arm's reach of Ronon. He backpedaled quickly. "Oh god. They've been programmed."

The hand on his arm became a little firmer, and John opened his mouth to deny it.

It was like a litany, ringing in his head _. You took a civilian into the field. You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done. You depended on rescue. You let emotion cloud your judgement._

If that wasn't programming, he didn't know what was. "Uh, maybe a little," he conceded, unable to tear his gaze from Ronon. "Hey buddy. You okay?"

The Satedan looked more spooked than John had ever seen him. ". . . yeah," he finally managed. "Yeah. Did you see a guy-"

John nodded wordlessly.

Rodney had stopped moving when he thought he was a safe distance from Ronon – and he was wrong, John wanted to point out – and then he started snapping his fingers. "A guy. You both saw a guy? Like a . . . a . . . commanding officer kind of guy?"

Sheppard pinned him with a look, regretting it almost instantly. God, his eyes were so blue. How the hell had he never noticed how blue they were? They blinked at him, not dilated, not full of agony and fear. Well, there was a _little_ fear, and John had to remind himself not to stare at McKay like a crazed lunatic.

"Uh . . . yeah. Yeah." _Get it together, John._

Ronon nodded too. "Like a drill sergeant I used to know back on Sateda. Liked pointing out all the ways crunchies screwed up."

"An instructor," Teyla said slowly. "Rodney, I thought you said-"

"Yeah, that there wasn't one." He still seemed a little distracted, and John intentionally averted his gaze, leaning off the pallet and giving Teyla what he hoped was a reassuring grin. She released him with an expression that said she trusted him about as far as she could throw him.

Which was quite a distance, considering –

"I think there was one. Well, some of one. In storage." He gave Ronon a wary look, but crossed back to the control panel, and Sheppard followed him, trying to look nonchalant.

"What do you mean by, storage? Like, stasis?"

"No." It was a little more distracted, a little more McKay. He brought something up on the main screen, lots of boxes in neat columns. "I mean storage like a hard drive."

"So you're saying there really was someone else in there with us?"

"I'm saying - . . . uhm," and he paused, glancing furtively between the three of them. "I'm saying that someone didn't get fully disconnected. There was a copy of most of someone's consciousness in there with you. Probably an instructor."

Holy crap. Spock was real.

Sort of.

Rodney pointed to Teyla. "When you were out looking around, did you, ah, see any other labs like this one?"

She gave him one of her dangerous 'patient' looks. "I saw many, Dr. McKay. There is one associated with all the barracks."

He nodded, his mouth thinning to no more than a gash across his face. "Ah. And uh, did you happen to see, I don't know, like a . . ."

"Dead guy attached to one?" Ronon supplied.

They'd thoroughly checked the place out with an LSD after they'd landed. Once inside the facilities, McKay had assured them the blue trees wouldn't interfere with scanning. And it had led them right to the power generation units, there was no reason to think it wouldn't have shown them life signs.

Holy shit.

Ronon made the leap the same time he did, judging from the Satedan's face.

An instructor had been hooked up when all hell had broken loose, and he'd been killed before he'd gotten out.

 _You took a civilian into the field._

These people had put up a hell of a fight. Even the vast forests couldn't hide the blast marks on the buildings. They'd sent everyone they had out against the Wraith, just like at Sateda. If an instructor had been hooked up during the last days of the war, he'd been training whoever they could get their hands on.

Training civilians.

 _You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done._

He'd seen his students fail to repel the Wraith. Doing what he and Ronon had obviously tried to do. Not leave anyone behind. Or maybe he'd done that himself, tried to save some of his men only to lose them all. To Wraith. Crippling, fatal Wraith feedings.

 _You depended on rescue_.

When no one had come to rescue them.

 _And you let emotion cloud your judgement_.

John tore his eyes away from Ronon, staring at McKay.

"I . . . admit I did not look that . . . closely . . . " Teyla trailed off, looking between them. "Colonel, what is it?"

"We gotta find him," Ronon said quietly.

\- x -

"Well," McKay said, then swallowed. "So, ah, does this look like the guy?"

Ronon's eyes were hooded. "Can't tell."

One desiccated corpse was just like another unless you personally knew them. He'd seen too many friends shriveled up by the Wraith to say they all looked the same, but it was hard to be sure that he was looking at Spock.

Not Spock. Commander Freyal Triune. There were two black pins in his collar, and the insignia of the army was still on his rotted uniform.

Remarkably, the Wraith had left the machines intact. Clearly at least one drone had penetrated this far into the complex, but they hadn't destroyed the technology. Maybe the best way to do that was from space, and the Hive ships just couldn't get a lock through the reflective trees.

Because the whole place ran on solar power, power had never been interrupted. The computer had been running for years, and the commander had been waiting all that time for new trainees to fight a war that was already lost.

"Rodney, I don't suppose any of this could be interfaced back on Atlantis . . . "

The scientist shook his head. "No, the technology uses the concept of telepathy they gleaned from the few Ancient artifacts they found, but the majority is based on light technology, and it's powered very specifically by this light." He pointed at the ceiling. "That sun is a Class O star. That's why the light outside looks so white. Most of the output is ultraviolet, and the trees are absorbing almost everything in the infrared spectrum."

"And we can't replicate something like that?"

Rodney frowned. "Half the power they're generating is coming from the ionizing radiation as opposed to the light spectrum. I know this stuff looks like fiber optics, but trust me, it's not. They didn't really make big batteries, seeing as they didn't need them. Even if we could somehow supply the right flavor of power, there's no way to interface this with our tech or the Ancient's."

"So there's nothing we can do for him." Ronon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "He doesn't even know he's dead."

"Well, he's not really a whole person, so . . . look." Rodney tapped the monitor above the light display, and gestured at what appeared to be a CT scan of a brain. It was probably close. "Your brain contains petabytes and petabytes of data. Most of it is connections, like linking tables in a database. The rest is the actual data, what things taste like, smell like, look like, how to speak, that kind of thing.

"When you're awake-" and he gestured vaguely at a brain segment – "this part lights up. What this system does is copy the electrical impulses from the bits that are active, and make some of those links. You see, hear, taste, all things you need in order to learn. When the program's done, it interrupts the electrical impulses exactly where it needs to to insert the new memories and experience into the existing matrix. Thus, you dream in the machine, but when you wake -"

"You remember all of it. I got that. You're saying everything that made him a capable soldier is – up there." The Runner gestured to the tangles of what did indeed look exactly like fiber optic cable.

McKay nodded, a little reluctantly. "Most of it, anyway."

"There's enough of him up there that he can think." Ronon shifted again, glaring through his eyebrows at the blinking lights as if he could somehow intimidate them into doing what he wanted.

. . . and what _did_ he want?

But Sheppard was pretty sure he knew. He wouldn't have left Rodney here like this. And he was certain Ronon wouldn't either.

In nearly every scenario, every one where he was able to keep Rodney alive until last, McKay had asked to die. Begged to die. Even when he couldn't talk, even when he wasn't coherent enough to even know what the hell he was asking for –

He had asked for the pain to stop.

"He knows," Sheppard said aloud, and as he heard his voice, he knew it was true.

Spock knew damn well that he was dead. That he had been left behind.

"Sure, obviously the copy's capable of problem solving, or he'd make a crappy instructor-"

"McKay, if you cut power to this device, what would happen?"

The scientist blinked at him. "Then all the data would disappear. This is technology based on light. No light, no data."

Sheppard looked up at Ronon, saw the same thoughts crossing his mind. Without a word, he nodded.

"Can you? Cut power?"

Rodney was giving him a strange look. "Yeah, of course."

John just nodded, staring down at the long-dead commander.

"Do it."

Beside him, Teyla took a deep breath, but her brown eyes were understanding. McKay, too, had seemed to make the leap, because he didn't say anything else, he just reached up, hesitating before tapping out a quick set of instructions. His forefinger paused, then curled back, and he dropped his hand, clearing his throat.

"I, uh, didn't meet the commander, obviously. Do . . . one of you want to do the honors?"

John shook his head, slowly. "Nope."

Rodney looked up at Ronon, standing at his shoulder, and the big Satedan crossed his arms. "Should be you."

"Uhm." McKay swallowed. "Why is that, exactly?"

Sheppard weighed his words. "Because he wanted to know why we take civilians into the field."

Rodney's eyebrows shot up. "So that they . . . could kill him? Sort of?"

Ronon gave the scientist a friendly slap on the shoulder that almost sent him stumbling into the corpse-laden pallet. "No. So you could save us."

In a way, they were undoing what had been done. He was trapped. And he _was_ dead. And he knew it. But he had never expected rescue from his computer generated hell.

And sometimes the response borne of emotion was better than all the logic and reason in the world.

Rodney looked unsure, and Sheppard gave him a quiet nod.

McKay nodded back, then slowly reached up, and tapped the screen. The fiber optics dimmed at once, and Ronon dipped his head.

Rodney bowed his head a moment, as well, but it wasn't in prayer, and his eyes darted uncomfortably around the room. "So," he said after a moment. "Shall we, uh-"

"Let's get the hell out of here," Sheppard agreed, and as one, the team moved towards the door.

FIN

\- x -

 **Author's Notes:** Yes, I know, there would be hellacious fallout. Dr. Weir would kill them for interfacing with a device that could copy their consciousness, it's a security nightmare. Still, I could see the boys thinking "VR war games! Yeah!" and Rodney being very confused when they both pop out and actually look GLAD to see him instead of screaming at him.

Hopefully it was what you had in mind, 1megal! Happy birthday about three years late. =D


End file.
